'The Marilyn Diaries'  in her own words, sort of

Published Tuesday February 4, 2014 at 6:30 pm

'Today I am thirty-six. I've officially reached the age that Hollywood considers a has-been. All I know how to be is Marilyn Monroe. It's the only thing I've ever really been successful at. Time is making it impossible to continue. And I don't know who I will be anymore."

THAT is not a quote from the late but eternally lively Miss Monroe. Those are words written by author/filmmaker/actor Charles Casillo in his classic novel, "The Marilyn Diaries," first published in 1999, now out in a new edition, from Hayworth Press.

Casillo, who also wrote an acclaimed biography about "City of Night" author John Rechy, published the first edition of "The Marilyn Diaries" before there was such a glut of "novels based on" Marilyn Monroe. And though it is fiction, this book sticks close to the facts of her last months (and the never proven rumors of Kennedy affairs). More interesting, it sounds like Monroe. If she had kept a diary, it might have read like Casillo's fiction. (The real-life Monroe was once asked in an interview if she kept a diary? She said: "Not really. Sometimes I would write things down, but then ... I'd tear them up!")

"The Marilyn Diaries" really hits pay dirt when Casillo's "Marilyn" considers the trajectory of her career, ruminates bitterly on her marriage to Arthur Miller and pragmatically recalls her long struggle to the top. There are some entertainingly fanciful episodes — a ladies' room brawl with Elizabeth Taylor, a clandestine luncheon with Jackie Kennedy — but the essential honesty and vulnerability of our heroine is never lost, just as she never lost those qualities in her real life.

Casillo's introduction to "The Marilyn Diaries" explains his own fascination with the star, and deftly examines the duality of her nature and the atomic impact of her fame during her own lifetime. Nobody knew what to make of her, really. And she never knew what to make of herself. And we are still trying to figure her out, 50 years after her death.

Marc Rosen, the clever product designer wed to the glamorous MGM era Arlene Dahl, is complaining that the National Enquirer has Liza Minnelli in a wheelchair on her last legs.

But Marc and Arlene had dinner with Liza right before this disaster article appeared. "She is not sick, in a wheelchair or drugged out" insists Mr. Rosen. So there!